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Ranks are grades that are obtained by completing a stage or act (sometimes mini-games) in the Sonic the Hedgehog series video games and represent how well the player participated in that particular event. The rank he/she receives is determined by how many Rings that are collected throughout the stage, how fast the stage is cleared, the number of enemies defeated and other such varying scores.

Contents

Overview

Ranks made their first appearance in Sonic Adventure 2. Since then, ranks have appeared in the majority of Sonic games released to date, but sometimes the scores are represented by stars instead of ranks (such as in Sonic and the Black Knight). Since Sonic Rush, S-Rank became the highest rank, replacing A, and it has been this way in the most recent Sonic games that use letters for ranks. The order of rank grade was A to E starting with Sonic Adventure 2, and S to D starting from Sonic the Hedgehog (2006). However, in the PlayStation 3/Xbox 360 version of Sonic Unleashed, E returned as the lowest rank but was dropped again from Sonic Colors and onwards (where D was the lowest rank).

Sonic Colors (DS)

Sonic Lost World (3DS)

In the Nintendo 3DS version of Sonic Lost World, Sonic does not add any comments to his Ranks; instead he spins around and gives a "Thumbs Up" depending on the Rank received.

Trivia

In the Wii/PS2 version of Sonic Unleashed, the rankings went from S to C, although the D and E ranks are present in the Xbox 360/PS3 versions. Sonic Adventure 2 and Sonic Heroes ranked A to E while Sonic 06 and Sonic Generations ranked S to D.

In Sonic Generations, almost the total score (and Rank) is calculated by the time taken to complete it. This means by completing an Act at a sufficiently fast time, it is almost always enough to earn an A or S Rank (assuming the player doesn't lose a life).

However, an orange bar counting as rings will extend off of the green bar (time).

In the PlayStation 3/Xbox 360 version of Sonic Unleashed, Sonic and Chip look directly at the ranking. Depending on what the rank is, they will behave in a certain way. They will get annoyed if the rank is bad (E or D), remain calm if the rank is average (C or B) and will dance for joy if the rank is good (A or S).

Receiving an E in any act causes the results BGM to be very distorted.

Since Sonic Colors, after getting any rank, Sonic will do a pose for the player, but only when the time to interact with the results screen stops. In Sonic Generations, after getting your score results and your rank, Sonic will do a pose, perform a move or just dance (depending of what rank the player gets).

Rankings were supposed to be given in Sonic Adventure as well, but the concept was scrapped during development time for unknown reasons,[citation needed] however the system was implemented into the next game, Sonic Adventure 2 and almost every other Sonic game released after.